
Whole School Chatter


We are delighted to be part of #SmithdownLitFest with author @SusanBrownrigg…
We are delighted to be part of #SmithdownLitFest with author @SusanBrownrigg sharing her new book Kintana and the Captain’s Curse. Ooo arrr me hearties.🏴☠️


We had such a lovely time at our #MacMillanCoffeeMorning
We had such a lovely time at our #MacMillanCoffeeMorning. Thanks to our families for their company and generous donations @macmillancancer
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Well done to this week’s award winners…
Well done to this week’s award winners. We are all so proud of you. Keep working hard 🌟
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Our award winners this week!
Our award winners this week! Well done everyone we are very proud of you all 🌟



Bonfire Fun
EYFS enjoyed using the sticks and leaves to make a fire. They enjoyed marshmallows and hot chocolate too!
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St Clare’s Lightning ⚡️⚡️⚡️
Year 5 and 6 really enjoyed taking part in the first game of the Toxteth Cricket League and came away with a good win.
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Peer Massage and Mindfulness with Jessie from Mind Happy
To launch Children’s Mental Health Week, Jessie from Mind Happy delivered a day of peer massage and mindfulness with each class. This gave us all some really useful strategies to look after our mental health every day, both at school and at home.


Mindfulness week.
Year 5 enjoyed learning about the Palm House and creating wonderful bird houses.
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Young voices
Some of the members of the choir went to sing with 8000 other children at the AO arena in Manchester. Although it was a long day we all had a fabulous time.
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Catholic Social Teaching
We had a visit from Jackie form the CAFOD education team, she introduced us to the animals that represent each of the Catholic Social Teaching values.
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Looking for signs of Spring around our school
In Reception class we went on a Spring walk and used our senses to investigate signs of Spring around us.



Meet a Judge visit
Representatives from our School Council, Rights Respecting Schools team and our House/Vice captains attended a trip to the Liverpool Civil and Family Court where they got the opportunity to interview 2 working judges and take part in a mock trial.






Mothers day cards and cakes in Reception class
We made some beautiful cards and chocolate strawberry crispy cakes to take home for our Mummy’s.


Spreading positive messages throughout school
Following our Mental Health Week, our School Council decided to spread some positive messages throughout the school. These can be read on a daily basis by children, staff and visitors to give them a positive boost to their day.




Fair Trade fortnight
We have been learning about the importance of giving farmers a fair price for their produce, such as coffee, cocoa and bananas. The fair trade symbol lets us know that farmers have been given a fair price, look for this symbol when shopping. Catholic Social Teaching about Solidarity teaches us that by using these products we are standing together as one with our global family.
At the end of our Fair trade fortnight, we had a raffle to win a hamper filled with Frair Trade goodies. As you can see the children were very pleased with their prizes.
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Eco council visit to the ‘Eco Centre’ in Southport to take part in the ‘Clean Air Crew’ initiative.








Year 5 led a wonderful Earth Day assembly. The children talked about the actions we can take to help God’s creation flourish.
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Year 5 designed and created their own parachutes in preparation for their air resistance experiment.
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Cash for kids walk in Year 3! Today we walked around our school perimeter three times and altogether walked a massive 20,000 steps! Well done Year 3 👏
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Year 5 carried out an air resistance investigation using self- made parachutes. Back to the drawing board.
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Year 6 mindfulness
Y6 have been fantastic during SATs week! They have worked and revised so hard! They even used their downtime to work together to create this beautiful owl 🦉
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Cash 4 kids
Year 4 took part in a sponsored walk to raise money for our local charity ‘Cash 4 kids’ who help children in our local area. We’ll done Year 4
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Changing Sound
Year 4 investigated how sound was made using tuning forks, water elastic bands and rice on a drum! They discovered that sound is caused by an object vibrating.
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Y6 celebrations
Thank you to the Frontline staff today who came into school with treats, games and prizes to congratulate Y6 for working hard in their SATs tests this week.
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Painting in the style of John Culshaw
Y6 studied the proportions of their faces before drawing their self portraits. They then painted them in monochrome taking inspiration from John Culshaw.
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Year 3 have been designing and creating money boxes in DT. We have had so much fun planning, designing and learning the process to lead up to finally making our final product! We finished with evaluating our product.



Observational Enquiry
Today we checked how our sunflowers have grown (or not!) We discussed how the amount of water we gave the plants effected their growth.
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Talking to Downing Street!
Year 2 are very excited to have had a response from 10 Downing Street following our persuasive letters about stopping plastic pollution.
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Evaluating our final pieces
Y6 held a class gallery today. They really enjoyed being art critics and left some fantastic feedback for their friends.
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Painting in the style of Liverpool artists
Y6 have been analysing the work of Frank Green and John Culshaw. They then chose an artist to focus on and created their own painting.
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The invention of the World Wide Web!
Year 6 have been learning all about the networks that link computers and devices together. Yesterday we went on a technician walk to audit the computing devices in our school. Today we have been researching Tim Berners-Lee.
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UK Parliament Week
This week, Y6 have created manifestos and voted in a polling booth for the next Y6 prime minister.
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Health and fitness week
Year 4 began the day with walking a mile around the school. It set us up well for the beginning of our Health and fitness week.
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Fruit tasting in nursery
Nursery class enjoyed tasting lots of delicious fruits this morning including strawberries, grapes, apples and blueberries. The most popular fruit in nursery is strawberries! Yum yum!
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Health and fitness week
Nursery and Reception had lots of fun taking part in the daily mile. We completed three laps of jogging, walking and jumping. It was tiring but very fun. We are looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow!
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Supermover spelling
As part of our daily spelling lesson, we use “Supermovers”. It’s a fun way to learn spelling rules and exercise at the same time. Year 4 love it!
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What do we want?… safer roads… when do we want it?… NOW!
Y6 made lots of noise on their Brake walk to raise awareness of road safety issues in our local area.
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Reinforcing our frame structures
Y6 have been practising making frame structures. They reinforced them using different materials. We are excited to make our kite frames next week!
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Making healthy snacks
Y6 have tried houmous this week. They then made their own flavoured houmous.
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Delicious dips
As part of Health and Fitness week Year 4 created their own flavour of humous by adding different ingredients. They chopped a variety of vegetables and used them for dipping. Not a dish was .left!
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Making sense of money
Year 4 had a visit from My bnk today showing us different bank accounts and what to use to buy goods. Are you a spender or a saver?
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Year 3 had a visit from My Bnk today showing us lots of different ways to be able to save money, different money habits and the bank accounts that are available to us. We now have lots of different top tips to take away with us!
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Road Safety Walk
As part of our Whole School Road Safety Week, each class went on a Road Safety Walk around our local area to raise awareness in our community and share some important road safety messages.



To raise awareness of Road Safety during our Whole School Road Safety Week, each class took part in a walk in our local area to highlight some important safety messages to our local community.


Health and fitness week.
Year 5 made a healthy Greek dip as part of learning about healthy eating
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Safe places to walk and cross
Year 5 took part in a walk through the local community asking for safer places to cross and walk.
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Rock Kidz Day
We invited the wonderful Rock Kidz into school for a fun filled PSHE day to let our hair down, get our rock gear on and focus on our mental health. This year’s focus was Perseverance and Resilience. We all had a ball whilst remembering to always keep in mind today’s key phrase… ‘YOU’RE AWESOME SO BE AWESOME!’













We invited the wonderful Rock Kidz into school for a fun filled PSHE day to let our hair down, get our rock gear on and focus on our mental health. This year’s focus was Perseverance and Resilience. We all had a ball whilst remembering to always keep in mind, today’s key phrase… ‘YOU’RE AWSOME SO BE AWSOME!’
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Parliament week
Year 5 carried out a parliamentary style debate on whether school uniform should be phased out. A number of children changed their minds and went against the party whip. Keeping school uniform won the vote. Democracy in action.
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Science
As part our our forces topic,year 5 created parachutes and carried out an investigation into how air resistance affects falling objects.
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Talented artist
One of our fantastic year 5 children with his brilliant drawing of the Liverpool skyline.
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DT
Year 5 enjoyed planning and creating different types of bread,importantly they were able to eat it afterwards.
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Cricket club
Year 5 and 6 showed fantastic cricket skills during cricket club sessions. We have really talented young people at our school.
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World Book Day
Year 5 spend the day creating their own comic books with fantastic storylines and illustrations. We have lots of future Stan Lees in our midst.
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Colomendy!
We had a brilliant time in Colomendy! We will share more pictures in our leaver’s assembly next week.
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Music Concert
Today Year 3 and 4 took part in a music concert, they showed their talents playing the ukele and the trumpets.
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Sefton Park Palm House visit
Year 5 had a wonderful morning at the Palm House. They took part in art and craft activities. They also learnt about the history of the beautiful structure and about some of the fabulous plants which can be found there.
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Sefton Park Palm House
Y6 had a fantastic morning at the Palm House learning all about the plants and history of this magnificent glass house.
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Creative/Imaginative play in Reception
As part of our Big Wide World topic we worked together to create our own sailing boat. We can’t wait to use it to travel around the world. Land Ahoy!!



Sports afternoon!
Year 3 took part in three different races today, running, egg and spoon and finally a sack race! We had so much fun, well done everybody!
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A virtual tour of Paris
As part of our geography about a locality study within Europe, year 4 took a virtual tour of Paris, using an on-line digital map. ‘We ‘visited’ all the major tourist attractions and worked out the best route to match our itinerary.
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Sports day!
At long last the weather held out and we had our school sports day. The children took part in running race, egg and spoon race and a sack race. They all had a fabulous time, with the parents cheering them on all the way. Photographs courtsey of 2 of our Year 4 pupils. The next David Bailey.
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Sports day
Year 5 enjoyed taking part in sports day. Lots of effort from everybody involved, particularly Mrs Jones.
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Art
Year 5 had a wonderful afternoon creating Ancient Greek comedy and tragedy masks. The children are extremely creative and they really enjoy expressing themselves through art.
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Food For Thought
Year 4 enjoyed a session with Food for Thought. They made vegetable stir fry with noodles, chopping, cooking, mixing and of course eating their incredible dishes. They really enjoyed learning about how to cook safely and how to make a balanced dish
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Home made digestive system
year 4 used a variety of readily available resources to create a simulation of what happens in the digestive system. It was very messy!
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Our brilliant box kites!
Today we showed our kites to Reception and flew them at the back of school. It wasn’t very windy but we still managed to get some lift in them!
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Pre Loved Uniform Sale
This week the School Council and Eco Council worked together to plan and deliver a pre loved uniform sale. It was a great success and very well supported by our school community, raising much needed funds which will allow us to continue our projects next school year. Thank you to everyone who supported us!
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We invited our families to watch our end of year musical showcase! We sang a selection of songs we have learnt accompanied with percussion instruments.



History
Year 5 enjoyed researching into the achievements of the Ancient Greeks and how their legacy is a part of our daily lives.
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Shapes
Year 5 carried out a number of triangle investigations. There was a prize for the winning team.
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Reception camping trip to the forest!
We had such a fun morning having a full camping experience in the forest. We sang songs and toasted marshmallows by the fire, built dens, enjoyed camping themed stories in the barn and even tested out the sleeping bags!

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3D shapes
Year 5 created different 3D shapes from cubes to hexagon prisms and cones. Great effort from all the children.
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Busy First Week
Year 4 have had a busy first week, we developed our own class charter, we picked articles from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that we thought we needed in our class. We created pictures of a famous Liverpool landmark using a variety of techniques (can you guess where it is?), consolidated our knowledge of 4-digit numbers using manipulatives, learned what partitive nouns are and found out that ‘Being different is the best thing ever!’ What a week!
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Following a picture map
Today we followed a picture map around our school grounds to find the treasure.
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Year 3 Art
In art this week we have been looking at the artist Sarah Sedwick. We have collected different fruit and cutlery to make a similar piece of still art work.






Self portraits
Today we used mirrors to look at our facial features and create our own self portraits.
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We are historians
Year 4 became historians today when they used a variety of sources to research Ancient Civilisations.
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Year 5 prayer and liturgy
Year 5 carried out a wonderful black history prayer and liturgy. The children read extremely. Well done year 5.
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Author visit
Year 5 and 6 took part in a writing workshop led by children’s author Marie Basting. The children produced some fantastic stories during the workshop.
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Diary writing
Year 5 spent their English lesson considering the thoughts and emotions of runaway slave Henry ‘Box’ Brown.
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Tidying up our prayer garden
After a long summer break, our prayer garden was in need of a little care. Y6 spent some time clearing the leaves and litter to make this a lovely space to sit and reflect.
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Classification
Year 4 worked together to find out the characteristics of the different vertebrate groups
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Peer editing
Y6 have worked hard to edit their diary entries today. They focused on the grammar and punctuation objectives and supported their friends to improve their work.
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Thermal insulators
Year 5 enjoyed carrying out an investigation into which material is the best thermal insulator.
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Year 3 music lesson.
Year 3 started their music lesson by just using the mouth piece from their instrument, to create different syllables and follow different beats!









Meet a Judge visit
Our Junior Leadership team and School Council members from Y5 and Y6 took part in an exciting opportunity at the Liverpool Civil and Family Court today.
They were invited to a question and answer session with 3 judges currently serving in the North West. Including a Crown court criminal judge, a family judge and an employment judge. It was fascinating to find out about their roles. We then took part in a ‘mock trial’ looking at a case of cyberbullying. We were all given a role to play and even got to dress up in robes and wigs worn by judges and barristers in court.



Museum trip
Year 4 went to the World Museum Liverpool to take part in an Ancient Egyptian workshop, we got the chance to look around the Egyptian display and handle some real artefacts
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Maths party day!
Y6 explored three ways to measure a tree. We discussed different methods and used mathematical equipment and perspective to help us to estimate the height of the trees.
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Maths fun
Year 4 had lots of fun learning maths today, we played times table hopscotch, took part in Supermover maths sessions and played class tournaments on TT Rocktars. Who knew maths could be fun!
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Fun maths day
Maths was lots of fun today in year 5, we took part in a maths lesson outside, creating symmetrical shapes and took part in lots of TT Rockstars tournaments.
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Maths day!
For Maths day in Year 3, we worked in small groups and one child was blindfolded, the child who was blindfolded was challenged to create a variety of 2D shapes from squares to pentagons, using rope. This was a new challenge but we worked so well in our groups and managed to make lots of different 2D shapes. Well done Year 3!











Reception and Year 6 buddies
Y6 visited reception today to get to know their buddies. They had a lovely time playing and making new friends.
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Reception dentist visit
We had a fun filled but informative visit from the dental team today. They taught us about the importance of brushing our teeth twice a day and keeping away from too much bad sugar. We were given a huge sticker for good listening and a toothbrush and toothpaste to take home!



Nursery autumn walk 🍁🍂
Nursery class found lots of autumn treasures on their walk yesterday morning. We found conkers, acorns, sticks and lots of different coloured and sized leaves.
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Y6 football
Y6 were very excited to begin their new PE unit today. They worked hard to dribble the ball with all parts of their foot – it wasn’t as easy as it looked!
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Hansel and Gretel
We have been using role play to explore why the Woodcutter and his wife left their children in the forest. We came up with lots of ideas and even persuaded the Woodcutter to change their mind!
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Basketball skills
Year 4 began their unit of basketball by practising their dribbling skills. Have you tried dribbling backwards!
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Biomes
Year 5 created their own biomes. This included the weather,vegetation and animals for their biomes.
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Lest we forget
Year 5 led a beautiful remembrance prayer and liturgy. This included a visit from friend of St Clare’s, Pipe Major James Axon who performed a wonderful lament (Flowers of the Forest).
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Imperial War Museum North
Today we visited the IWM North. We were really excited to revisit our learning on WW1 and we added to our knowledge of WW2. We learned about the effects of war and the value of peace. We also got to take part in a two minute silence at 11am to mark Armistice Day.
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A real Lowry painting!
Whilst at the IWM North, the eagle-eyed children spotted an original Lowry painting! We spent time looking at the figures and discussed the inspiration for the painting being WW2. What joy this was to see as we studied this artist in Autumn 1!
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Odd socks day!
Today we are wearing our odd socks to mark Anti Bullying week. We are reminded that we are all unique and different and we should celebrate this by always being kind to one another.
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Anti Bullying Week Assembly
Today our Junior Leaders planned and delivered whole school assembly to mark Anti Bullying Week. They then invited each class to come out and share what they’d been doing to mark the event.



Reading for pleasure club
Y6 enjoyed their first reading for pleasure club meeting. They have chosen to read ‘The Eye of the Wolf.’
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Jacqueline Wilson webinar
Y6 took part in a live webinar session with Jacqueline Wilson today. She talked about the inspiration for her stories and discussed her books. We are excited to read more of her stories!
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Y6 maths
We have really enjoyed our maths sessions this week! We have done some measuring, BIDMAS and balancing equations – what a busy week!
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Students of the Future Roadshow
We were excited to welcome two students from Liverpool University to our class this week. They spoke to us about the courses they study and what it is like to go to university. Lots of us were inspired to go to university in the future!
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People who help us: Firefighters
We had a surprise visit from the firefighters today! We had such fun squinting the hose, having a close look at the fire engine inside and learning all about their important uniform.


Reception Class: Making vegetable soup!
We carefully followed a set of instructions to make our very own healthy vegetable soup for snack. It tasted absolutely delicious!


Thinking about sugar
Y6 took part in a live session today led by the school health team, they were very engaged and shocked at what they learned! They explored how much hidden sugar is in food and drinks. They then learned how to be sugar detectives.
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Aspiration day!
Today we have thought about what and who we aspire to be in Y6. We aspire to be: teachers, footballers, goalkeepers, doctors, an entrepreneur, a NASA scientist and a paleontologist!
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Linear number sequences
In Y6 we used Numicon, Cuisinairre rods and multilink cubes to explore number sequences. We learned about ‘term to term’ rules and the ‘n th term’.
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History museum trip
Years 5 and 6 went on wonderful museum trip to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester.
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No pens day
Today as part of no pens day Y6 took part in a debate asking if money on space travel should be spent on people on Earth instead? There were lots of strong arguments on both sides. Well done Y6!
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Parliament Week
Our Rights Respecting focus group delivered an informative and interactive whole school assembly today focusing on the British Value ‘Rule of Law’. This led nicely into the official launch of Parliament Week.


What, no pens!
Year 4 did not pick up a pen today! All learning was done through debate, performance poetry, computing and science investigation. Who says you have to write everything down.
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Performance poetry
In Y6 we learned about Benjamin Zephaniah and his passion for poetry. We listened to some of his poems and worked in groups and as a class to perform ‘Talking Turkeys’.
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Algebra problems
Y6 have worked incredibly hard to master algebra this week. They really enjoyed getting stuck in with a ‘Bipods and Tripods’ problem. They used a range of equipment to help them work in a systematic way. Keep it up Y6!
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Reflecting light
Y6 carried out some interesting investigations to see how light is reflected off different surfaces.
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PSHE. We have been looking at different types of bullying. We had a whole class discussion and then the children showed this in small groups.




Aspire week. We were extremely lucky to have a visit from the Fire service!
“I aspire to be a Fire fighter”.








Advent Prayer and Liturgy
Year 5 led today’s Advent prayer and liturgy, celebrating the 2nd Sunday of Advent – Peace.
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Science (filtering)
Year 5 enjoyed taking part in a science investigation into how we can seperate solids and liquids using filtering.
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Christmas gingerbread houses
We think these houses would have certainly caught the attention of Hansel and Gretel!
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Nursery class winter walk
Nursery class had lots of fun exploring the snow and making a snowman with our friends in Reception Class. After our winter walk we enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate.
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Classification
Y6 have been using the working wall, text books, their own knowledge and classification keys to group and classify living things.
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We love board games!
Y6 love playing card and board games during wet play. There were some fierce Uno games being played and some chess champions in the making!
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Decorating crowns
In R.E Nursery have been learning about the wisemen visiting Jesus. During continuous provision the children decorated their own crowns.
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Using Bible references
Y6 helped each other to look up and find different books and chapters in the Bible. We can now find our favourite passages with ease!
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Super sewing!
Y6 have been working really hard to create bags from recycled materials. They combined their textiles together using running stitch and back stitch and added handles and pockets to suit their design brief.
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Today we launched of our weekly ‘time to talk’ story bag sessions in Reception. What a super turn out from our wonderful families to support our drive in developing language and communication skills.



Reception Class Ice Experiment
We carried out an ice investigation to find the best way to melt ice and how we could keep it frozen for longer.




What makes a good setting description
During English, we analysed extracts from ‘The Girl of Ink and Stars’, identifying what language features make a good setting description.
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Hockey
Year 4 have been learning to dribble and push pass in hockey this week, not as easy as it sounds.
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Frozen toys!
This morning we arrived at nursery to find some of our toys had been frozen. Oh no! We worked together to break the ice to rescue our toys using warm water and plastic tools. Well done, Nursery!
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Jubilee Year Launch
Today we had a visit from Jackie from CAFOD. She came to tell us all about this year’s Big Lent Walk fundraising event – buying ‘glitter chickens’ for villages in Kenya and to hold workshops for years 2 and 4, learning about the Jubile Year of Hope.
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Matball
Today we had an inter-house matball competition, led by a member of the LSSP. We had a great time and at the same time learned lots of new skills. Scotland came out the overall winners.
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Nursery class have been exploring the number 3.
The children in Nursery showed great enthusiasm as they went on a hunt to find numeral 3 cards that were hidden around the room. We have also played number 3 bingo and matched up 3 piece jigsaws. Well done everyone!
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A magnificent Maya morning!
We welcomed Dr. Diane to our classroom this week. She told us all about the Ancient Maya and how they lived their lives. She also brought lots of artefacts for us to explore!
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Sorting living things into subcatagories
This week in science we were asked to sort groups of mammals into smaller categories based on their defining characteristics. We thought of many different ways to split the group into smaller groups for identification.
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Standing in solidarity with one another
Y6 reflected on the theme of solidarity this week during their assembly. They listened to the story of Shristi the Sun Bear and shared with the rest of the school the ways we stand together to help our global neighbours.
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Nursery class are enjoying their new reading area!
We love looking at books and talking about what we can see on the pages. We can hold the books the correct way up and can carefully turn the pages.
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Drama and role play
Year five really enjoyed acting out the model text, it helped them to understand how the character reacted to his environment.
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Perimeter
Year 5 created rectilinear shapes using cuisenaire rods. They had to calculate the perimeter of those shapes.
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Pulleys and gears
The children worked really hard when trying to create pulley systems and gear systems. They tried different materials and carried out a very good evaluations of their products.
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Pilgrims of Hope
Today we welcomed Jackie from CAFOD to teach us all about the Jubilee year. We learned about pilgrimages and about working together for the good of everybody.
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Decorating lanterns in Nursery class to celebrate Chinese New Year.
We enjoyed using collage materials to decorate lanterns and some of the older children enjoyed watching the Chinese Dragons in the hall.
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Nursery class enjoyed taking part in messy play activities, linked to our topic Winter Wonderland.
We made snowmen using loose parts in gloop and had fun mark making using ice-cubes.
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Our visit from the Chinese dragons!
Today we had a fantastic, uplifting visit from Liverpool Hung Gar Kung Fu Club. They brought their Chinese dragons, lions, drums a symbols into school to give us a truly breathtaking performance. We learnt all about the history and tradition of the Chinese lion dance and even took part in one of the performances.



Winter Wonderland fun in Nursery Class
This week in Nursery we have been learning all about winter animals including naming and describing them and finding out where they live. We have also been developing our painting skills by painting snowmen.
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